I do not own Freddie, Alfred Pennyworth, Leslie Thompkins, Amanda Waller, or Martian Manhunter. I did create Thomas and Evelyn Ainsley. DC does. Please enjoy this chapter for free.

Mid-Morning: Wayne Manor Kitchen: Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

Freddie leaned on the kitchen island while piercing his old friend with a stare. "May I ask how things fell out at the Ainsley place after you hung up on me? I came right over, but if you're here doing dishes ..."

Alfred nodded. "The threat of yesterday seemed to be satisfactorily dealt with. However, your news makes it seem more has come of it since."

"May it have anything to do with that other matter you asked about?"

Alfred stiffened. Then he cleared his throat. "Freddie, I'm sure taking a certain route, we can have a nice drive while avoiding that area."

Freddie raised both eyebrows again. "Alright Ole Chap. Let's go."

Mid-Morning: Ainsley Manor: Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

Thomas stared at the monitor's showing live footage from the front gate. Evelyn Ainsley walked up beside him and looked too. People in dark suits stood in front of a dark sedan holding official looking badges up in front of the camera. Evelyn rang a bell. Others from throughout the house converged on her including a recovered Juniper. Over the audio channel from the camera, she heard "warrant" and "charges for obstruction" mentioned before she asked the others. "Anyone care to share before I go out and talk to them?" No one answered in the affirmative. Evelyn sighed. Then the turned to Dr. Thompkins. "Alright, please call my lawyer sis."

Moments later, Evelyn stepped out of her large front door. Thomas strode at her side down the long path to the gate. On the other side of it, a stout solidly built looking black woman stood in sunglasses. She was flanked by taller, muscled, and yet, somehow no more intimidating male agents.

Evelyn folded her hands in front of her. She tried to meet the shielded gaze of the other woman. "May I ask why you need entry through my gate?"

"We believe events that involve national, even global, security happened nearby. We need to thoroughly examine not only the premises, but also interview everyone on the property, who was here yesterday."

"Does the law permit you to 'force' me to let you examine everything and everyone I'm responsible for here?"

"I have a badge, I have paperwork, and I can call several people at the IRS to comb through your tax records."

"Impressive. I'm glad I've been quite careful to keep abreast of them and pay all Uncle Sam thinks I owe."

"You were accused of murdering your first husband, weren't you?"

"And I was cleared of that. After the will was sorted out, I paid all 'his' back taxes that he'd dodged in his lifetime."

Waller removed her sunglasses and continued to look the wealthy woman straight in the eye. Her own were hard. "Ma'am." She also made a motion with her hand. A fourth agent exited the sedan with a bloodhound. For the first time, Evelyn's eyes lit up. Her gaze ran over the rather beautiful hound.

"Lovely animal you have there." She began to extend a hand.

Waller's tone was biting. "He's on duty. As are we. We have reason to believe your home may have been infiltrated by an enemy who is very good at looking like someone else. We've trained this and other dogs to tell this enemy apart from others by smell."

The hound's nose twitched as it sucked in large breaths of air through the fence staring at Evelyn and Thomas. Both humans stared back. The hound's mouth opened but only in a relaxed pant. Waller looked back up into Evelyn's face. Disappointment was apparent on her own. "If you don't let us in to let him smell anyone else on the property, I 'will' make sure you face the most extreme punishment possible for "obstructing" my investigation. I don't care who your ancestors were or how big your bank accounts."

Leslie strode up behind her sister and sister's bodyguard. "Evelyn, when I told Justin the acronym on the badges they have, he said he won't be able to help you, except maybe get you a cell with a window, if you don't cooperate."

Waller gave a smug grin. Evelyn and Thomas' faces turned down in scowls. The bloodhound lifted his head and sniffed in Leslie's direction before his head lowered in disinterest again. Thomas looked to Evelyn. His employer puffed out a breath and nodded her head. The tall and scarred man pressed a button. The gate began to slide aside.

Late Morning: Open Road North of Gotham City: Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

Alfred sat in the passenger side of Freddie's rented car. His old colleague glanced at him with confusion in his eyes. "So … is there 'ever' a time you'll let me begin my divulgence of information?"

Alfred pursed his lips. They were now a dozen or so miles from the manor. "Yes. Now."

Freddie gave a small smirk, "Alright, according to my source, the Commies had an alien in their ranks for a time. He was disguised as one of their scientists. Later, he invited a fellow alien who'd been on "this" side of the pond, infiltrating NASA, to come to meet with him over there. They got into a fight. By that time, the scientist, or extraterrestrial in disguise, had been moved out of the U.S.S.R's space program and into their secret police. He apparently had ESP, their best example of such. He could not only dig up enough from 'enemies of the people's' minds to convince his fellows, but also back it up by learning where evidence of disloyalty to the party could be found. He sent dozens to the gulags. He also ferreted out a few spies. He only went back to looking like an alien, when he had quite the scrap with the other. Most common belief I guess, that went around the information communities on both sides of the cold war, was that the one in Russia abandoned the mission they had to learn about space travel development by us earthlings and "went native." The other one had to remind him what they'd been sent to do. Either way, they took the fight out of the view of the Russians. Later though, a team was sent out with dogs in this remote area mostly used for ice-fishing by the natives. There in the ice, they dug up the one that had apparently been their Russian ESP specialist. They took him back to a facility, ran all sorts of tests on him, questioned him and such. They learned the other one had been his brother and he had quite the chip on his shoulder about their fight and how it ended. However, no information he gave them led the Commies or "us," who were cooperating with them on this, to finding or capturing the other."

"Who did you learn this from?"

"I'm only telling you this, because we searched the car and are out on this pleasant drive pretty far from anyone else …"

"Yes?"

"My source was a secretary for a higher up in their government. She received all the memos and reports sent his way. We turned her and tucked her away someplace safe. I was pretty surprised when she agreed to talk to me. Though, she did seem nervous the whole time, poor Bird."

"So … she wasn't a part of the team who found or experimented on this alien?"

"No. She never saw him only a few photographs, the results of the experiments, transcripts of his interrogations ... She didn't understand all of what she saw and read. Honestly, she told me, at the time, she believed it to be malarkey they were feeding "us" to get us to cooperate with them against a common threat."

"That's what I thought the Americans were doing to the Russians, when I discovered like information here."

"So, you think it's all true then?"

"Fredrick."

"Yes?"

Alfred sighed and moved his fingers along the wheel before gripping it much harder. "We have one back at the house."

The butler was glad he was the one driving. His old colleague jerked away. Then he stared at him while leaning back in the passenger seat. "Are you having me on?"

"I wish I were Old Bean. He's been living with us for some time."

"You, and Bruce have been letting the American-side extraterrestrial that buried and froze the other solid in Russia live in Wayne Manor?!"

Alfred frowned a bit darker. "Why are you so certain it's 'that' one and not the other?"

"Because …" Freddie broke off and then started glancing around himself. Then he looked back at Alfred. "Did he claim otherwise?"

"No … but why are you sure it couldn't be the one you were just telling me about?"

"I heard from that old secretary's lips they were supposed to be able to read thoughts in people's minds even from far away."

"That seems to be true."

"Now, I know why you wanted us away from the house. Are we out of mind-reading range?"

Alfred sighed. "I don't know."

"Perhaps you better get us there."

"Freddy, I have a feeling, if he could read your mind from where he is, he already has the information you are afraid to share with me. So, can you inform me as well?"

"The other retired spy sighed. "The secretary said … the other one was killed … in the lab … years ago …"

Alfred pulled the car over to the side of the road, let out a deep breath, and bowed his head over the steering wheel. "How Freddie?"

"I …" Freddie began looking around again this time rolling the window down and sticking his head out.

Alfred interrupted him. "Freddie. If he can, he will, trust me Old Bean. Now tell me before we or Master Bruce has to face him without knowing, 'how' did his brother die?"

Freddie, instead of stretching himself out to look around sank back into his seat folding himself in and looking smaller doing so. "She said … 'fire' was supposed to be the most reliable way to control them."

The hairs rose over Alfred's body. This time, Freddie went on without prompting. "So, when he tried to escape one time, they panicked and burned him. Apparently, the photos were pretty grizzly. They used more than one flamethrower."

Alfred laid his forehead down on the steering wheel. Frederick unfolded himself to lean over staring at his old companion. He glanced around one more time and then turned his gaze back on Alfred's still pale face. "So, what do you think the other one will do when he knows?"

Alfred muttered back, "This will kill him 'and' Master Bruce."

"He'll kill Bruce?'

"No … but we'll lose them both just the same."

Freddie raised an eyebrow.

Ainsley Manor: Late Morning: Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

Dr. Leslie Thompkins sat legs crossed, straight-backed, and stared unseeing at the wall in a well-furnished and lit room alone until Waller walked in … alone. Leslie turned her gaze enough to follow the other woman's progress through the room and over to a chair across from her place on the sofa without actually making eye contact. Waller sat forward. "Are you aware of my deal with your godson?"

Leslie raised an eyebrow. "You've spoken to Bruce?"

"I have. And I know he's been back at his parents manor for months and what he does at night."

Leslie sighed and looked away at a wall before saying dryly, "Perhaps you know him better than I do now."

Waller gave a smug smile. "I don't think so."

"What deal did you make him?"

"I said if he helped me capture someone, who seems to have been in the woods nearby, recently, I'd make sure state and federal agencies made Batman obsolete."

Leslie turned her gaze to the other woman's face. "The Batman … obsolete?"

"If most of the members of the cartels and whatever dirty politicians and smaller time criminals they work with, are pressured to testify against each other and taken off the streets, why would Batman be needed?"

Leslie tilted her head staring back at Waller. "How would I know?"

Waller raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, "Let me put it another way, I'm willing, for valuable enough information on the target I'm seeking, to offer you the same deal."

Leslie narrowed her eyes. "Is there a law-enforcement malpractice suit I can bring against you in the same vein as the 'medical malpractice suit' I'd receive for failing to treat a hospital full of patients?"

"Gotham's more ordinary crimes are outside my jurisdiction, so 'No.'"

"Yet, you can make me this deal?"

"I can put pressure on those in whose jurisdiction it 'does' fall."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"So, if I had pertinent information, I suppose it would make 'me' a bad citizen to hold it back."

"Yes."

Leslie stared at her knee covered in her navy blue skirt. "It's a shame then … I've spent no time in or even near the woods since I came to live with my sister."

Waller gave her an angry grin. "Why don't you tell me what happened yesterday from your point of view anyway?"

"From when?"

"From when you woke up."

"The phones rang. I ignored them. Then Thomas knocked on my bedroom door and gestured for me to pick the one in my room up. I did. It was Lucius asking me to see someone he was acquainted with having a possible mental health crisis. He gave me some details he knew of the case. I agreed. I dressed, ate, and went into a room to meet with this person alone. He came, and we talked until he noticed a problem outside the house. I and Thomas did as well. Thomas went to deal with it. Sensing I might have to take part in dealing with the crisis, which I did, and probably wishing to avoid further delving into his issues, my new patient left."

"And this patient's name?"

"I'm sure you are aware of doctor-patient confidentiality."

"I'm sure I can get a court order for any information you might have relating to my operation."

"I'm sure I need my lawyer to confirm that."

Waller sighed and rose from her chair. "Stay here for now."

Leslie's gaze followed the other woman as she left the room. Her body relaxed slightly after the door closed behind the agent. She looked down at her hands and saw they were shaking.

Sky North of Ainsley Manor: Late Morning: Eleven Years After Waynes' Deaths

The Martian stared at the mansion below and before him. He'd only managed to read Dr. Thompkin's mind, fearful to read the agent's, but that had been more than enough. His invisible hands turned into invisible fists.

What do you think now?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes